Day 8: Busting loose

July 12, 2016

"The average man don't like trouble and danger."
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

Wooo-hooo! Today was the first day of sun. I dont mean occasional sun, but sun all day long with few clouds. Heck, even my saddle sore is gone!

I started just north of Minneapolis. Normally I dont like riding through cities. Too much traffic and I dont feel safe leaving my bike anywhere that I cant see it. But the weather made even riding through a city enjoyable.

I started on the bike path network and it was perfect....

The Trucker taking a rest by the river, basking in the sun.

The underside of one of the many bridges that run through the city

Famous sign on the left in downtown Minneapolis. The bottle cap sign was put up in celebration of the end of prohibition.

Things went well until I got to the middle of the city when a number of detours turned the simple to follow route into a kind of mess, routing wise. I went up hills and down hills all to avoid construction, then I got twisted around and all kerfuffled. I had a long way to go and I became more amd more frustrated. While I was riding in circles I notice a lite rail station and had an inspiration. I hopped on and rode abouts 5 miles to St Paul union station and out of routing hell.

This all led to a cool discovery, a bike shop in the amtrak station! They have only been there two months and I hope they do well. Very convienent for someone starting a tour there.

A bike shop right in the Amtrak station at St Paul! Cool.

From there things got a little chaotic. The route signs were often missing, or worse, routed me in a way that made no sense and seemed to double the distance. In fact this is another reason I dont like riding near cities. Routing. In Rural areas routing usually is smoother.

I was getting tired and just ready to get on a really busy road to finally get to Prescott when a woman cyclist stopped next to me.

"You dont want to take that road," she said. "I will show you a better way."

It was certainly more scenic buy felt much longer, with a lot of hills.

".....I tried prozac," she said as I tried to keep up, "but being on a bike is better so now I ride to stay sane,"

She was being very nice and even went a little out of her way, but I was a little grumpy because I was tired and hungry.

Still, I made it to Prescott safely and had about 10 miles to go to the Nesbitt plant nursery, which I was heading to because the Adventure Cycling map said they have cyclist only camping.

By the time I arrived I was more than fried. All I wanted was somethig to eat, perhaps a showere and a place to put my tent. Except when I got there, there was no one in sight, everything was dark and the little restaurant attached to the nursery was locked up tight.

I felt shattered and not exactly sure what to do. I called the number on the map but it was disconnected.

Should I just set up my tent go to bed?

Finally I decided to asked the people from the farm house across the street but all I got was barked at by the dogs in the fenced cage, no humans were home.

I would try one more farm a little down the road. There were trucks in the driveway and I started down the road but before I got there I was a woman riding the other way.

"I heard the nursery has cyclist camping but no one is here." I asked her. "Do you know anything about it?"

"Yes, my fiancee owns the nusery. To back and have a seat outside. We live right up the road, I will ride home and tell him to come back and open the place up for you."

Its like I always say, you never know what is going to happen on a bike trip. I was so happy and relieved to not have to quess at what to do.

About 20 minutes later Lee showed up, opened the place up for me so I could use the restrooms, introduced me to the cat who was in a cage recovering from a fight, showed me the breakroom so I could heat up mu dinner, and where I could pitch my tent.

We talked for a long time about bike touring and other bike related things until it was almost dark and i needed to set up my tent.

It was a long day with a lot of ups and downs, it all ended well.

Sculpture made entirely of junk pulled from the river

There were a few pretty farms later in the day

Today's ride: 69 miles (111 km)
Total: 449 miles (723 km)

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